Shopping portal Fashionmall.com will introduce its “universal shopping basket” next month, which will enable consumers to put items from all of its nearly 70 vendor sites into one centralized shopping basket for checkout.
This new feature is expected to stimulate activity at the portal and spur its loyalty program – FM Points.
Consumers will be able to earn FM Points for every dollar spent and also will earn points with merchants who have a program in place by shopping through the portal.
“Offline consumers use their American Express cards for all of their purchases so they can accumulate reward points,” said Ben Narasin, CEO of Fashionmall.com, New York. “We hope, instead of visiting individual sites, they’ll go through Fashionmall.com, where they’ll have a bigger bang for potential points.”
FM Points were introduced in November. Consumers earn points for enrolling, referring a maximum of five friends and correctly answering the daily trivia question called “The Daily Dot.” They will also earn points for taking surveys in the near future.
The points can be redeemed for clothing or accessories in the site’s redemption catalog. Fashionmall.com is adding airline frequent flier miles and hotel stays to its awards offering. The site will also better be able to track consumers by consolidating the checkout function.
“It’s great data for finding out what they’re doing across the sites in an aggregated form. We can learn more about how to do our job better,” said Narasin.
Also on the drawing board is a master search index. Here, consumers will be able to search all of the vendor sites according to category and price point. For example, a search can be conducted for ties under $50.
To promote the portal, Fashionmall.com sponsors fashion-related events such as the launch of FHM men’s magazine. It plans to expand its print campaign in the near future as well, although it currently runs ads in Elle, GQ, Vogue, W and Vanity Fair. It also is considering television ads.
There are plans to add a new category to the site called The Edge. This category will focus on urban markets.
“There is an entire unmined market,” Narasin said. “The non-Caucasian marketplace is huge and very poorly served.”
Fashionmall.com’s apparel and accessory merchants include Banana Republic, The Gap, Coach and Ashford.com.
